• FreeAdvice has a new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, effective May 25, 2018.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our Terms of Service and use of cookies.

Americans with Disabilities Act

Accident - Bankruptcy - Criminal Law / DUI - Business - Consumer - Employment - Family - Immigration - Real Estate - Tax - Traffic - Wills   Please click a topic or scroll down for more.

J

jennsfor24

Guest
My name is Jennifer L. Stubblefield. I live in Fort Worth, TX

I have just found out after looking for a job for over 7 months that my past employer has been giving out information that I think may be against the law. Since I am not sure I thought that I would post here and see what I could find out.

I quit my job in June of 2001. It was a voluntary quit. The owner of the company agreed to pay me for the 1 weeks vacation I had coming to me. I asked for it after I quit, I had to try. She agreed to pay it to me but refused to call it vacation pay. She called it severence pay.

Since then I have been actively looking for employment. I interviewed for several jobs. The people that I interviewed with seemed overly willing to hire me on the spot exept that they had to follow guide lines and verify my past employment. Then, I would never hear from them again. This went on for some time. I got the idea in my head that there must be some reason that I was not being hired.

I had a friend of mine call and act like they were verifying employment on me to my previous employer. She e-mailed me today about their conversation. My ex-boss went on about whether or not I was eligible for rehire. My ex-boss and I had an agreement when I quit that as long as I would remain accessible to the company to answer questions as far as how to do some of the things that I was responsible for, she would give me a good reference and that things would remain as they were, that I was eligible for rehire.

She also said something to the effect that I had some health problems. I do have high blood pressure and I am a diabetic. I did have to take off work for about an hour every two weeks or so to have those things checked. But, I always tried to make up the time.

She also said that I was just burnt out from the job and had been there too long.

I was wondering if there was any illegal lines that she has crossed by volunteering up this information regardless of if it were true or not.

Any help that you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jennifer L. Stubblefield
 


cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
The only thing that is questionable in terms of legality is the issue about your health. I went back and looked at the exact wording of the ADA. To my surprise, I found that your former employer is not restricted from volunteering that you had health issues; at least, not under the ADA that I could find, and I went straight to the source. Then I checked Texas law, and I couldn't find anything there, either. If the information is untrue, that's illegal, but as long as the information is true, I could find nothing forbidding them to volunteer it.

However, under the ADA, if a prospective employer ASKS about your health issues, that is a violation. What's more, if you are otherwise qualified for the job, a prospective employer is in violation of the ADA if the SOLE reason for failing to hire you is the health issues that were brought to their attention inadvertantly.

Now, before you get too excited, they aren't required to give you preference, either. If they are checking the references of the three top candidates, they cannot use your health issues as the sole reason to eliminate you from consideration, but if a different candidate ends up being on top of the heap when all other things are considered, they are not in violation to hire the other candidate instead of you.

Texas law states that your former employer cannot conspire to keep you from getting other employment, and cannot blacklist you. But from what they said it doesn't sound as if they are trying to keep you from getting another job.
 

Find the Right Lawyer for Your Legal Issue!

Fast, Free, and Confidential
data-ad-format="auto">
Top